Articles by
David

It's a constant battle not to fall victim to complete and unrelenting cynicism about this President and his Administration. Here's a perfect example of where the president is saying all the right things, yet I catch myself rolling my eyes in disbelief:

U.S. President George W. Bush personally signed off on a visa allowing former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami to visit the United States because he wanted to hear his views, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

. . .

"I was interested to hear what he had to say," Bush told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. "I'm interested in learning more about the Iranian government, how they think, what people think within the government."

. . .

"My hope is that diplomacy will work in convincing the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions. And in order for diplomacy to work, it's important to hear voices other than Ahmadinejad's," Bush added.

The CIA has a videotape that shows Osama Bin Laden walking on a trail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when he eluded capture by U.S. forces, according to the WP. Since then his trail has gone "stone cold":

The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

. . .

On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. "We were there last night," bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.

That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

Several officers confirmed that the number of special operations troops was reduced in March 2001.

In another indication of how seriously the Bush Administration takes the pursuit of bin Laden, his FBI Most Wanted Poster makes no mention of the 9/11 attack.

Kentucky businessman Vernon Jackson, who pleaded guility to bribing Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), sentenced to 7+ years in prison. He continues to cooperate with the investigation and won't report to jail until sometime after the first of the year.

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall.

Just reading through the paper this morning in Christchurch, New Zealand, and I see that Channel 1 is planning to air "Path to 911" tonight. Thought everyone might be interested in the fact that this shameless propaganda isn't limited to the states and has the potential to impact people (and history books) everywhere.

If I have my time zones correct, BH is reading the paper on Sunday morning New Zealand time.

Earlier, I wrote that I was starting to think that ABC's role in the "The Path to 9/11" was less about the network being boneheaded and more about it being complicit in a right-wing propaganda push. Says LA Times media critic Tim Rutten:

It is none of those things.

It's an opportunistic and self-interested organization that somehow thought it could approach the most wrenching American tragedy since Pearl Harbor with the values that prevail among network television executives â the sort of ad hoc ethics that would make a streetwalker blush â and that nobody would mind.

I have been particularly fascinated with the internecine war among Republicans being played out in the Rhode Island Senate race. Those who have been following along at TPM's Election Central know the national GOP is spending a small fortune in the Republican primary to save incumbent Lincoln Chafee from a conservative challenger, the thinking being that the moderate Chafee stands a much better chance of winning the general election.

Especially striking has been how little coverage the race has gotten compared to the Democratic Primary in Connecticut, where the national party basically stayed out the way. You would think the GOP spending money in a tight election year to defeat a bona fide conservative candidate would get more attention.
For one, the GOP spending money against a pro-life Republican to shore up a pro-choice incumbent validates what religious conservatives have complained about for years: that the GOP only comes calling on Election Day. In this case, they're being ignored on Election Day, too.

In the earlier post about the NYT, Lamont and Lewinksy, I wrote: "Who cares? It's not as if Lamont is touring Connecticut talking about berets and cigars."

To which a TPM reader replies:

No. You're missing this pretty badly (as did Drum). Lamont has been talking about this all spring and summer.

And this is a reporter doing a good job.

Lamont is being asked about it repeatedly because L'affair Lewinsky has long been a standard part of Lamont's attack on Lieberman.

And since the Lamont camp has basically been repeatedly making a false charge, I don't blame a reporter for wanting to pin the candidate down on the precise basis of the attacks.

If L'affair Lewinsky has been a standard Lamont attack on Lieberman, then I would be wrong to say the NYT was ginning up news on this. So, have berets and cigars been a part of the Lamont repertoire (I mean that figuratively, folks)? Shoot me the links, and I'll eat some crow.
Late update: However, as a number of readers have pointed, the NYT's characterization of the email that Lamont sent Lieberman way back when does seem a tad misleading. You be the judge.

Yesterday, we touched on the conservative evangelical credentials of the director of ABC's 9/11 hackumentary. But Max Blumenthal has a rundown on the full scope of the right-wing apparatus behind the production and marketing of the miniseries:

A week later, ABC hosted LFF co-founder Murty and several other conservative operatives at an advance screening of The Path to 9/11. (While ABC provided 900 DVDs of the film to conservatives, Clinton administration officials and objective reviewers from mainstream outlets were denied them.) Murty returned with a glowing review for FrontPageMag that emphasized the film's partisan nature. "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible," Murty wrote. As a result of the special access granted by ABC, Murty's article was the first published review of The Path to 9/11, preceding those by the New York Times and LA Times by more than a week.

Murty followed her review with a blast email to conservative websites such as Liberty Post and Free Republic on September 1 urging their readers to throw their weight behind ABC's mini-series. "Please do everything you can to spread the word about this excellent miniseries," Murty wrote, "so that 'The Path to 9/11' gets the highest ratings possible when it airs on September 10 & 11! If this show gets huge ratings, then ABC will be more likely to produce pro-American movies and TV shows in the future!"

I figured ABC was mostly guilty of agreeing to air a boneheaded docudrama, but it's starting to look like ABC was also complicit in a right-wing PR campaign.

I was beaten to the punch in lamenting the NYT story yesterday about Ned Lamont criticizing Joe Lieberman for criticizing Bill Clinton's conduct with Monica Lewinksy. Tangential enough for you?

The initial NYTpiece makes it clear that the paper steered its on-the-record dinner conversation with Lamont to the decade-old scandal. Who cares? It's not as if Lamont is touring Connecticut talking about berets and cigars.

But the pathetic gotcha journalism continues today with--help us all--a follow-up story that Lamont actually praised Lieberman at the time for his criticisms of Clinton.

Isn't this the sort of ginned-up news that was supposed to have been ushered out with Howell Raines?